The Skrullpire Saga Part 2
by BlackPan1her
Summary: The Avengers, along with the Guardians of the Galaxy, venture to Skrullos to save their friend, and face off against the Skrulls' newest weapon...


The Skrullpire Saga

Part 2

An Intergalactic Incident

"I don't even know where I am, last thing I recognized was Planet X. And I passed that about 20 minutes ago... Or maybe it was an hour ago. I have no idea how long I've been flying" Nova Prime, known to his allies as Richard Rider, was used to talking to himself in the vast outreaches of space to keep his mind busy, but this time he was trying to backtrack his journey so he could get back home to Earth. "Worldmind, is there anything you can recognize around here?" Nova asked his helmet. Worldmind beamed into his subconscious and told him, "No, I cannot Richard. However I am detecting a similar energy signature close by." Nova eyes widened. "Is it friendly?" He asked. "That appears to be affirmative. It is the Guardians Of The Galaxy. Starlord, to be specific," Worldmind replied. Nova scuffed and said under his breath, "Well, friendly is debatable. Last time we spoke, it wasn't under the best of circumstance. But at least it isn't space pirates… or worse…" Nova Prime flew toward Starlord's craft, slightly humbled.

"Hey! Starlord! I need some directions!"

Starlord allowed Nova to come inside his space craft and just said, "We haven't talked in what seems like a lifetime, we both say things to each other that we can never take back, and you come aboard my ship to get DIRECTIONS?!" Nova shrugged and said, "Well, when you say it like that, yea. It's like that."

Starlord took a few moments to respond,but as he was about to speak, his comrade Rocket Raccoon chimed in. "Hey, it's Nova Prime! How's it hanging, man." Nova heard another familiar voice. "I am Groot." Groot and Raccoon walked towards Starlord and Rocket Raccoon said, "If you need to back home, we're on a voyage to Earth right now to get Drax and…" Starlord told Raccoon to shut it, but he allowed Nova… to follow them. He figured Nova would be able to catch up with their ship.

After a few hours, which seemed like days or even months in space, the four were within Earth's gravitational pull. After getting clearance from S.W.O.R.D, they all were able to land onto Earth, somewhere near New York City. Starlord and his two fellow Guardians exited their ship and joined Nova and he peered off a cliff, gazing at the New York skyline.

"The reason I needed to come back home is because I REALLY miss Earth food. Why did you want to come here? " Starlord turned his head towards him and said, "We have a message to tell the Earth. The Skrull have a new secret weapon. One that could bring the entire galaxy to its knees."

Starlord told Rocket Raccoon and Groot to stay in orbit around Earth, and he and Nova ventured towards the Avengers Mansion, to let them know of the looming danger to come.

The two men arrived at the Mansion and were greeted by J.A.R.V.I.S. "Greetings, Master Richard. Welcome back to Earth. How was the Nebula 9 squadron?" Nova replied, "It was ok, Jarvis. Where's Tony? We need to talk to him." "One moment, sir."

A minute or two later, Stark appeared in front of them, fully armored, and said, "I think I know why you're here, Starlord. S.W.O.R.D. agents found your team near Skrullos, and saw you fight what appear to be hybrid, more savage Skrulls. "

Iron Man led the two heroes into the Mansion, and Starlord asked Tony if anyone was going to do anything about it. "Drax was almost captured by those… things! And I heard one of yours was too." As soon as Starlord said that, T'Challa the Black Panther appeared. "Yes. Blade was taken by those savages, and we believe they used Eric's DNA to create these new creatures. We were planning a mission to rescue Blade, and it seems you two just volunteered to join me." "Join you?" Nova asked. "Yes, Richard. And I have one more man who is ready as well."

Adam Lang, the second Ant-Man, walked into the main hall and put on his helmet. "The Quinjet is ready if you are all set. Oh. Hello, Richard." Starlord interrupted Adam and said, "Hold on. If I'm going to go on a mission with you guys, I want to take MY ship." He pressed a button on his pocket console, which sent a signal to Rocket Raccoon and Groot to land the ship near the Mansion. "I see you all are set. I wish I could join you, but our last fight with The Hand left the upper levels of the Avengers Mansion in shambles, and I have to take care of it."

After the four men entered the ship, Rocket Raccoon and Starlord prepped their spacecraft for launch. Adam Lang looked over at Black Panther and asked him, "Hey, T'Challa, can we trust these guys?..." Black Panther turned to Adam and said, "Of course. Nova has proved his place in the Avengers, and the Guardians of the Galaxy are known around the universe as valiant warriors. Do not worry, Adam."

Some time passed and Starlord broke the silence informing the team that they were close to Skrullos. Black Panther was sharpening a dagger in the corner of the ship, and Nova was right by the door, ready for a fight. Raccoon and Starlord searched for a place to land the craft. They located the Skrull prison at the edge of the capitol city and landed a mile or so away from it. All the men started leaving the ship, but as Groot slowly walked toward the exit, Starlord told him to stay in the ship and keep watch in case reinforcements from the city came.

They approached a wall of the prison, and Black Panther examined it and told the others, "There is a weak part of the wall right here." T'Challa touched the wall in the area, then Rocket Raccoon broke out a detpack and placed it on the wall. Within seconds, a giant hole was blown out of the wall, and the team entered the building. Starlord was worried that the explosion would cause some Skrulls to take notice, Rocket Raccoon simply told him, "Look, there are times for stealth. And then sometimes you have to blow things up." Rocket Raccoon and Black Panther went ahead of the others and used their superhuman senses to search for Skrulls. They all came across a door with a small crack on the bottom of it. Black Panther glanced back at Adam, and Adam simply said, "I guess this is my cue."

Adam shrunk down and walked into the small crack in the door, looking around. A group of Skrulls were walking around, patrolling the area. But these weren't ordinary Skrulls. Their sharp canine teeth, their jaundice skin color, their deformed hands almost resembling claws; they looked like something out of a horror movie.

Fortunately, none of the Skrulls noticed Adam climbing up a chair and flipping a switch to unlock the door. Adam then went back through the crack in the door and explained the situation to the rest of the team.

Without skipping a beat, Starlord said, "There's no other way to get through here, we're going to have to engage them." The rest of the team nodded their heads in agreement, and Nova decided he would go through first.

Starlord hit the panel on the wall to open the door, and Nova flew in at incredible speed and fired two beams of energy at the first few Skrulls he saw. Black Panther went through the door next, throwing a few smoke grenades near the entrance to conceal Starlord and Raccoon as they burst through the door, guns blazing. Adam was perched on Starlord's shoulder, and leaped off to join in on the attack. Adam stayed at a 2 inch height to prevent being seen until he got in close contact with one of the vampire Skrulls, sizing up to normal height and knocking the Skrull out with a well-placed uppercut. Starlord looked around and saw there was that one the other side of this open room, there were huge loading bays along the wall. This room was the area where the Skrulls brought in new prisoners. "You forgot to mention to us that this place had docking capabilities. The Skrulls could send reinforcements here in a matter of minutes," Starlord scolded. Adam replied, "Oh sorry, I was too busy not trying to get seen by these things!"

Rocket Raccoon broke out a machine gun and started mowing down every Skrull he saw. Meanwhile, Black Panther was grappling with one of the Skrulls and didn't notice another coming up from behind him. Nova, however, blasted the other Skrull with pinpoint accuracy from across the room and raced towards Black Panther to gloat. "Looks like I just saved your hide there. Watch your six," Nova smirked. T'Challa said nothing in response, instead noticing there was a Skrull with a ray gun directed right at Nova, and without a second thought threw an energy dagger at it, knocking the Skrull down. "And should get your head in the game, Richard," replied Panther.

Eventually, the team succeeded to kill off the first wave of vampire Skrulls. "Before more arrive," Black Panther said, "We need to get to the holding cells and find Eric." Rocket Raccoon scurried towards what looked like a vault door and exclaimed, "Uh, I think this is the door we're looking for." Starlord walked towards a downed Skrull and picked his pockets, and in one of them he found a keycard. He threw it to Raccoon and said, "Try this on the panel next to it. It's the only thing we have; your detpacks won't be able to open that door."

The keycard worked, and the team split up to find Blade in two groups: Starlord and Rocket took the west wing of the prison, and Black Panther, Adam, and Nova took the east wing. The prison seemed like one huge corridor of cell after cell lined closely together. All of them could hear the occasional scream or two from a random cell, which likely meant that all of these inmates were tortured throughout the day. "Savages," Nova said under his breath as he and his to allies searched through the cells to find Blade.

Starlord and Rocket Raccoon came across an unlocked cell down the hall. "What in the world?..." Starlord said, but as soon as he talked, he heard growling behind him.

Titannus appeared behind the two of them. Without hesitating, Rocket Raccoon threw a sleeping gas grenade in Titannus' mouth. "We don't have time for that, we're here to find Blade," Rocket Raccoon said, "Let's go find where Panther is."

Meanwhile, Black Panther had run ahead of his group after smelling a familiar scent. He came across the door and clawed the lock open. Black Panther's intuition was right: Eric was in the cell, weakened from the experiments he had been forced to be a part of. T'Challa helped his friend up and put Eric's arm around his shoulder. "You're going to be alright, my friend." T'Challa also wanted to make sure he had the 'right' Blade, so he took a sensor out and pointed it at Blade. The sensor was a Pym-created Skrull detector based off the technology in 3-D Man's glasses. Before the test was done, Blade finally spoke up, "Why the hell has it taken you this long?" Black Panther thought to himself, "_Yep, that's Eric, all right. _" The test came up positive; He was the real Blade.

The two men walked out of the holding cell, and Blade pointed to a guard who was sleeping up against a wall. "Hold on one second, T'Challa," Blade said as he took Black Panther's arm off his shoulder and quietly sprinted towards the guard and snapped his neck. He searched the guard's body and took his sword out from the guard's side. "I wasn't going to leave without this. We've been through much togather." Black Panther shook his head and chuckled, as the two men walked back towards the rest of the team.

Nova saw Panther up ahead with Blade next to him and flew towards them and put Eric's other arm around his shoulder. "You don't need to baby me, fellas," Blade said under his breath. "I hate to be the first person to ask you this," Starlord said, "But these things are based off your DNA. So, do these vampire Skrulls have any weaknesses?" "I don't mind, and they do have weaknesses. Very few though," Blade said. "They have the ability to walk in daylight, but high exposure to extreme levels UV rays makes them deteriorate."

The men walked back to the dock of the prison, but as soon as they reached the door, the room was swarming with Skrulls. A commanding Skrull officer yelled out in English, "Humans! Put the specimen down and put your hands behind your head!" "I'm a specimen?" Blade shouted, "A specimen?!" He reached for his sword and as soon as he grasped the hilt, they all heard the familiar voice from behind them.

"No one knocks out the mighty Titannus and lives to tell the tale!"

"Oh, now we're hosed," Rocket Raccoon stated.

As the team prepared for the fight of their lives, Starlord heard a ship in the distance. "I think there is more reinforcements on the way…" he said. Rocket Raccoon looked up ahead and said, "I don't think that's a Skrull ship."

The ship appeared behind the troop of Skrulls. Rocket Raccoon could see the person in the cockpit; it was Groot, flying Starlord's ship. "Apparently, he must have thought we would be in trouble," Raccoon said. Groot turned on the intercom on the ship and yelled into it. "I AM GROOT!" was his war cry as he fired the front guns of the ship at the Skrulls. The team sidestepped the gunfire and Groot shot a few times at Titannus as well. Groot then landed the ship during the confusion, and the team quickly came aboard. "Thank you, my friend," Starlord said, "But I'll take it from here, Groot." Groot nodded and simply replied, "I. Am Groot."

Starlord turned the ship around to 'get off the god forsaken planet' as he said to himself, with Rocket Raccoon manning and firing the rear cannons at the rest of the Skrulls who were still standing. Black Panther walked toward the side gun controls and shouted to Starlord, "I doubt we'll get off the planet without a fight!" Starlord just nodded his head, as he noticed on the radar a several Skrull ships approaching.

T'Challa and Rocket Raccoon shot down a couple of ships, but a few more were still trailing them. Nova decided to fly out the ceiling hatch of the ship and take care of the other ships himself. "It's just like target practice!" he said as he fired energy beams at the enemy ships.

Nova raced back into the ship, with Groot closing the hatch behind him. Starlord activated the lightspeed on the ship, and his team was finally safe. Their mission was a success.

"Well, they still have that doomsday weapon, and no doubt there are more of those freaks," Rocket Raccoon said. "I know," Black Panther replied. "But we won't have to worry about venturing to Skrullos anytime soon. They will come to us this time...and we shall be prepared."


End file.
